Educated Guesses: Week 14

If you really must be inside the Georgia Dome this weekend for the SEC Championship game, the cheapest ticket on StubHub will cost you $325.

If that’s a little outside your budget, seats can be had in Charlotte for the ACC title showdown for as little as $3. Hundreds of tickets are available for less than the shipping and handling.

Or as one Facebook friend (a football coach himself) said, “That’s price gouging if I have ever heard of it. That should include free limo service and refreshments from wherever you travel.”

The ACC truly has devolved into a pitiful football conference. It pains me to say it, considering I grew up loving and defending it, but it’s just a fact.

Just look at last weekend’s result for proof. The ACC’s so-called elite when 0-3 against the SEC East, and it wasn’t particularly pretty.

Despite a hot start, Clemson couldn’t keep up with a South Carolina team without its star running back or its starting quarterback.

Florida State melted down in the fourth quarter against Florida.

And Georgia Tech was no match for Georgia.

For good measure, the SEC East’s fourth best team, Vanderbilt, dropped 55 points on Wake Forest. Go back to the season opener when Tennessee dumped N.C. State and the SEC East went 5-0 against the ACC. The only ACC win against the SEC all season was Clemson’s nail-biting late rally to beat an Auburn team that went 0-8 against the rest of the SEC.

Perhaps the worst indictment of the ACC is the fact that former league power Virginia Tech had to rally late at home to beat a horrific Virginia team and give the conference a fifth bowl-eligible team. That of course counts Georgia Tech, which will likely fall below .500 after that ACC title game that nobody wants to see.

Clearly Notre Dame knew what it was doing when it refused to accept football membership in its new conference. If the Fighting Irish manage to beat an SEC team in the BCS title game, it’s the ultimate proof that they aren’t ACC caliber.

Maybe Louisville will come in and fix everything. HA!

Anyway, it’s time for championship week’s educated guesses (worth almost as much as a ticket to the ACC):